Belief in Motion
by How Like a Winter
Summary: 50 sentence prompts for Jacob and Esau. A little slash here and there.  "With the first rain of the season came a time of rejoicing, running out in the cool showers with his brother to dance under the thundering sky."


1. **Motion**

When Jacob observed from afar, scrutinizing the humans at his leisure, he could not deny Esau's sculpted arms and tanned skin from years of toiling under the sun, every motion an effort to just prepare food or construct a shelter.

2. **Cool**

With the first rain of the season came a time of rejoicing, running out in the cool showers with his brother to dance under the thundering sky.

3. **Young**

Mother joked that Jacob would never grow up, but he suspected that she meant it with all seriousness, and so sometimes he found himself glaring at Esau and the village, wondering how he had weakened in Esau's absence where Esau flourished away from his brother.

4. **Lust**

Jacob curled his lip and turned away when he saw Esau staring out at the ocean lapping against the shore, and Jacob was forced to acknowledge that Esau's lust for freedom had surpassed his love for Jacob long ago.

5. **Wrong**

They locked eyes and Jacob swallowed, both the words he would have spoken and the blood that rushed when Esau licked his lips in that way, for although Jacob was about to break a common taboo among the humans, he could not always grasp understanding of their right and wrong.

6. **Gentle**

His brother was not a gentle man, Jacob understood more than ever, as he shuddered under the calloused fingers and inhaled sharply as teeth struck his lower lip.

7. **One**

When he returned to the camp, Jacob wilted under Esau's laughter and stammered as he tried to explain why he had only caught a single fish, while Esau had brought back enough to feed them for a week.

8. **Thousand**

The demand was repeated for the thousandth time, and then the plea to leave, and Jacob realized at the sharp pain in his chest that if he did not separate himself from his brother soon, Jacob could hardly refuse to release him any longer.

9. **King**

Shaking his head, Jacob insisted that he did not think of himself as a "king" to these people, but Esau smirked and argued otherwise simply because he delighted to see Jacob's clenched jaw and laugh at the muttered denial.

10. **Learn**

You have a lot to learn, Esau told him, as cool cheeks and warm lips touched Jacob's trembling own in the darkness.

11. **Blur**

"I'm gonna get it first!" Esau shouted behind his shoulder as he hounded the boar, and Jacob forced his legs faster as they ached under the strain, the two boys a blur before the Mother's smiling eyes.

12. **Wait**

Although Esau begged Jacob to wait and reconsider the rash decision, he dragged the _Black Rock_ to the Island kicking and screaming, and from that ship came forth the man that forever taunted Esau by replacing him.

13. **Change**

Esau changed his face from one day to the next and Jacob couldn't even bear to change his clothes.

14. **Command**

They were always very aware of who commanded the other, though Esau prided himself on the ability to reverse this under the cover of night, where the Island was a mere annoyance in the back of his mind and he relished every strangled moan provoked with each caress that he knew Jacob could not resist.

15. **Hold**

Little Esau's cries didn't compare to Jacob's wails, piercing despite his tiny size, as Mother rocked him in her arms and sighed.

16. **Need**

Although he longed to shake Jacob by the shoulders and demand to know why he had granted Richard immortality and even allowed him to intrude upon his sacred cave at times, Esau didn't want to hear the answer he suspected, that Jacob needed Richard by his side as anything more than a friend.

17. **Vision**

The bastard haunted him even in his dreams, Jacob thought, curling his fingers into pale fists to rub his eyes and attempt to forget the images of Esau standing over Jacob's own body with a knife that dripped red.

18. **Attention**

Always, Jacob fretted over the fate of the Island's children, to whom he paid special attention—coddling them, at times in Esau's opinion—and he lashed back by appearing to them as ghosts, chasing them through the jungle, hurting them just to see Jacob wring his hands in despair.

19. **Soul**

One of the Islanders cursed the smoke monster, shouting that the creature had no soul, wasn't even human though it wore the mask of one, and Jacob shut his eyes, reminding himself that the others did not know Esau like he did.

20. **Picture**

Where Jacob traced simple lines in the sand for a few idle minutes, Mother had to call Esau back at sunset to tear him away from his detailed map of the possible worlds across the sea.

21. **Fool**

Even after centuries of practice, Esau could not fool Jacob, who had committed to memory the rise and fall of the chest and the arrogant stride regardless of the face Esau wore.

22. **Mad**

If Jacob ever dared misbehave, he shrunk back under Mother's glare, but Esau puffed up and squared his shoulders no matter how angry Mother was.

23. **Child**

The coppery taste of blood pooled where Jacob bit his tongue, punishing the tears that sprang to his eyes when Esau called him a fucking child.

24. **Now**

Once, he wove with Mother at his side, but now his fingers spun in her memory, and when he breathed in deeply he could imagine the scent of crushed flowers and dried leaves.

25. **Shadow**

As the shadow of John Locke crossed the floor of the cave and shifted in the dancing light, Jacob leaned forward in the wooden chair and sighed with the calm of the ocean waves, determined to prove that Esau couldn't frighten him any longer.

26. **Goodbye**

The words tasted as impossibly bittersweet on his lips as they were simply impossible, and Esau wondered if he would ever be able to finally say goodbye, to both the cursed Island and the brother that clung to it.

27. **Hide**

Mother questioned him to no end, always asking why Jacob simply could not move on and stop pining over his lost brother, though he tried with forced smiles and the shrug of his shoulders to hide his grief.

28. **Fortune**

As Esau learned the hard way, all the riches and the fortunes of kings that he amassed from those that passed through the Island could not purchase freedom from Jacob's grasp.

29. **Safe**

Even in the confines of the cave, the arms of solitude did not reassure Jacob of his own safety in quite the same way as Esau's when they gripped him in the night, threatening to squeeze enough to choke but never quite able.

30. **Ghost**

Why, Esau wanted to know as he fled the ghost, must Jacob pursue him even in death after two thousand years of haunting his every move?

31. **Brook**

Only the brook heard the children's' whispered secrets, the wild cries as they tore through the forest, the splash as tiny feet stomped in the water, the shout of victory when one outwitted the other at one of their games.

32. **Eye**

The narrowed brown eyes silenced Jacob at once, and Esau nodded, wordlessly putting Jacob in his place.

33. **Never**

Sometimes, on the days when he returned to his cave trembling with fear or choking back tears over a life that Esau had just taken, Jacob wished, for a fleeting second, that he could be the one to torture the other and watch Esau cower in fear, but Jacob knew above all his anger that he could never bring himself to do it.

34. **Sing**

Once Jacob opened his mouth and tried to sing like Mother with one of her lullabies, and Esau told him, "Never do that again," though he was smiling.

35. **Sudden**

A sudden scream pierced the air, and the blood drained from Jacob's face as he understood that Esau had just revealed himself to the newest arrivals.

36. **Stop**

When Jacob clasped his hands together and begged in strained words for Esau to stop teasing the young boy with images of his dead mother, Esau only turned away, his laughter echoing off the walls of the cave into which he had been summoned.

37. **Time**

The passage of time could not erode their immortal bodies, their everlasting hatred for one another, or their everlasting love.

38. **Wash**

Though Jacob longed to wash Ricardo's sins away like the man had begged him to, Jacob knew more than anyone else that this was not possible, for if it were, Jacob would have cleansed Esau's and his own in the ocean's depths years ago.

39. **Torn**

Esau seized the tapestry that hung innocently from the wall and tore the threads one by one, ignoring Jacob's demands to stop, the plea for Esau to preserve Mother's delicate creation.

40. **History**

They knew the history of the Island like they knew themselves, the two brothers both pieces of the past, ancient relics that still continued the same battle.

41. **Power**

There was little more to say about power than they had not already acknowledged for thousands of years: Jacob had it, but Esau was convinced that there still remained the chance for him to seize it for himself—and neither disputed that Esau reigned supreme under the cover of darkness.

42. **Bother**

Jacob sat up with a start as something cried out in the night, and he glanced at his sleeping Mother and brother, reaching out with a quivering hand to shake one awake before deciding that he couldn't bother them, so he curled under the blankets and squeezed his eyes shut.

43. **God**

In the moments where the Islanders' admiration of Jacob bordered on worship, Esau rolled his eyes and hoped more than ever that some God existed out there, but with authentic power instead of Jacob's cheap tricks.

44. **Wall**

Realizing that Ilana had not yet returned home and the sun had just set, Jacob hurriedly brushed past the cave walls and ran outside, calling her name, praying that Esau had not laid a hand on her.

45. **Naked**

Wide eyes and a fixed stare expressed only a fragment of the awe within Jacob as he traced cords of muscle that tightened under his touch and sharp angles that threatened danger but promised pleasure.

46. **Drive**

Sometimes Jacob thought Esau must infuriate Mother with his endless questions and misbehavior, like the time he stuck seashells in her hair while she slept, but still she strangely admired the little rebellions, patting him on the head and telling him with a wan smile that he would drive her crazy one day.

47. **Harm**

As Ilana limped back into the cave, blood staining her clothes, Jacob grabbed her arm and whispered words to ensure that Esau could never harm her again.

48. **Precious**

Although Jacob could not tell a lie, years of growing up with Esau had taught him to recognize one, and he could not deny the strained affection in Mother's voice when she assured Jacob that she would always see he and his brother as equally precious.

49. **Hunger**

When Esau mocked Hurley's size and ravenous eating habits, Jacob responded by comparing Hurley's hunger for food with Esau's hunger to escape the Island, and Esau could only glare in return.

50. **Believe**

Once Esau scoffed when Jacob stared at him with those serious eyes and said, "I still believe in you, Brother," but he understood at last when the light surrounded the two of them and they moved on together.

* * *

**AN**: I wasn't sure if we're allowed to post these here or not, but I feel guilty about having not uploaded anything really new in awhile, so here this is. I'm working on several things at once, so pretty soon I should have something legitimate to upload!


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